Rams the biggest at this monster's ball

Ray Ratto

Published
4:00 am PST, Sunday, February 3, 2002

2002-02-03 04:00:00 PDT New Orleans -- I believe it was the '80s pop band the Buzzcocks who said it best in one of their more heart-searing ballads with the words, "If you can't think once, then don't think twice."

Words to live by, especially if you're a neurosurgeon, bomb demolition expert or cab driver. Hesitation makes migraines for us all.

Which brings us, albeit through the service entrance, to today's 36th running of the bulls in the Louisiana Superdome. Billed as a potential mismatch between the St. Louis Rams and New England Patriots, it is nearly upon us now, and all the evidence points to . . . well, a mismatch.

Actually, that might be laying it on a bit thick. There have been more absurd matchups in Super Bowl history -- ones that looked bad when they were made, smelled bad as they developed, and looked bad when they were finally played. Packers-Chiefs in SB 1 . . . Raiders-Vikings in SB 11 . . . Cowboys- Broncos in SB 12 . . . Bears-Patriots in SB 20 . . . 49ers-Broncos in SB 24 . .

. Cowboys-Bills in SB 27 . . . 49ers-Chargers in SB 29.

At first glance, Rams-Patriots gives off that kind of whiff. The Rams, with the new plutonium offense and the vastly improved defense, against the Patriots, with the baffling defense and the remarkable special teams. On its face, this looks like a comfortable Rams victory, if not in fact a hunch rout.

But we know better, of course, because we've listened to a week's worth of rationalizing, of you-just-don't-understand-what-makes-the -Patriots, of potential magic in the air.

We've also listened to a week's worth of boy-wouldn't-it-be-great- to-shut- those-cocky-arrogant- Rams-up. There is some of that out there, too.

But there is one troubling aspect about the Super Bowl that mitigates against the Patriots and their devoted, boisterous and occasionally sober fans.

Despite head coach Bill Belichick's defensive schemes and the mystical qualities bestowed upon quarterback Tom Brady, the plain fact is the Super Bowl is a bully's game.

Other than the Jets in 1969 and Chiefs in '70, the warm, cuddly underdog is misplaced here. Either the setting is too large, the opposition is too large, or the burden of being the better team is too large. Indeed, save the Jets in Episode Three, or the Chiefs in Episode Four, there has not been a prohibitive underdog, which the Patriots plainly are, to rise up and win the game outright.

Oh, they may come within the two touchdowns the books say separates these two teams. They may even hold the Rams below the over-under figure, holding steady at 53.

But win? It's hard to see how.

The Rams are faster at most positions. They have far more weapons offensively, and on defense have been pushed around only once all year, by the Saints in Week 7. Moreover, the Saints and Buccaneers needed to force 14 turnovers to beat the Rams, and the Patriots just don't seem the type.

This is, of course, the same narrow-minded conservatism that fooled everyone when the Jets and Chiefs won their Super Bowl. Those were the days when America didn't know what it had in the American Football League.

But the Super Bowl was quaint then, still a game and not a monument to all that makes America what it is today . . . grandeur and kitsch, enormity and excess, influence and star power, price-gouging and ticket-scalping.

The Patriots are too much a surprise, too glass slipper and hey-how-did-you- guys-get-here to take the Super Bowl and make it their own. Your first impulse was best. Try as you might, you have been unable to convince yourselves the Patriots are the better team, and you're not even sure they can stay within the two touchdowns demanded of them by the good people of Las Vegas.

So you go with your gut, as Gene Rayburn used to say on "The Match Game." You go Rams 38, Patriots 13, because nothing less rings quite true, even in this triumph of artifice.

In fact, make it 42-13, because the Rams probably won't kick a field goal unless they absolutely must. It's not what a bully would do.